


ab initio

by Ladybug_21



Series: Compartments [3]
Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Backstory, Badass Lady Barristers, F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 10:28:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21894667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladybug_21/pseuds/Ladybug_21
Summary: ab initio(law): [Latin] "from the beginning"Moments across three decades in the lives of two brilliant, ambitious, fiercely competitive, utterly uncompromising barristers.
Relationships: Jocelyn Knight/Maggie Radcliffe, Sharon Bishop & Jocelyn Knight
Series: Compartments [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1660780
Comments: 28
Kudos: 173





	1. London, 1988

**Author's Note:**

> As a disclaimer, I have only a passing familiarity with the English-and-Welsh legal system, and so am positive that I'm going to get a lot of things wrong here. Please bear with me, any actual barristers reading? Or willingly suspend your disbelief?
> 
> I own no rights to _Broadchurch_.

Gray's Inn had immaculately maintained lawns. That was the first thing that Sharon noticed upon arriving, and it was the thought still occupying her as she sat outside the barrister's chambers, anxiously tapping one foot against the leg of her chair, wondering vaguely if the run in the back of her stocking was visible. Her sister Theresa had told her that morning that the stocking was fine, which was good, because Sharon didn't have any bloody time to go buy a new pair. But, then, Theresa hadn't seen the flawless lawns at Gray's Inn.

Already, Sharon just wanted this whole interview to be over.

"Miss Bishop?"

Sharon stood, straightening her pencil skirt with one hand and picking up her purse with the other. The aristocratic-looking woman who had just appeared at the door glanced her up and down appraisingly, then offered a hand.

"Jocelyn Knight. Come in."

Sharon glanced around the room as Jocelyn Knight took a seat. Tidy bookshelves stacked high with legal ledgers lined the walls. A degree from Somerville College framed behind the desk. No photographs, though. Interesting.

"So." Jocelyn folded her hands on her desk. She was wearing a perfectly tailored suit that probably cost more than Sharon had spent on food all year. "I'll start by telling you what I suspect you already know: I don't take pupils."

"I've heard," Sharon replied evenly. "Thank you for being willing to meet with me anyway."

"My pleasure, although I just want to warn you that you're not going to walk out of here with a job."

The way this conversation was starting off, Sharon was already getting the feeling that that was a very good thing.

"Well, then. What can I tell you?"

"Reginald Chesterfield was my criminal law professor," Sharon answered. "He told me about the pro bono work that you did in Whitechapel in the 1970s."

"Did he?" Jocelyn looked amused. "That was years ago, back when I was young enough and foolish enough to take a brief of that magnitude on, for no pay."

"He said it was heroic," Sharon replied shortly. "I agree."

"Ah. Another young idealist."

"I'm from Peckham. I know just how much your work meant to those East Enders who needed it."

"I see." Jocelyn sat forward a little in her chair. "Well, I ultimately view the law as a noble cause. It would truly be a pity if it weren't used to help people who so desperately need justice."

Sharon made a neutral noise, her mouth still curled into a slight frown. Jocelyn arched an eyebrow.

"You disagree?"

"May I be perfectly blunt, Miss Knight?" Sharon asked after a moment. "After Professor Chesterfield told me about the prosecutions you conducted on behalf of all of those immigrants being terrorised in Whitechapel, I asked him what you'd been doing since. He said that you stopped taking those sorts of briefs, started practising mostly on behalf of people who had resources already. And, especially knowing that you think that the law is a noble cause, I was wondering, why? If you have the privilege of holding the title of Queen's Counsel, shouldn't you continue to use that status to highlight all the inequalities in the system?"

Jocelyn didn't respond for a long moment, and Sharon's hand inched towards her purse, so that she could seize it easily when Jocelyn politely asked her to get out.

"It's a good question," the barrister said finally. "And I can't say that I have a good response. I suppose the simplest answer is that, by the time I became a QC, I didn't really need to go looking for cases; they found me."

"But?"

"But I think you've also very reasonably called me out, for having played it safe for too long." Jocelyn shot Sharon an unexpected smile. "One isn't appointed a QC by having a shoddy record in court, and some part of me probably stopped taking risks with that milestone in mind. You're right. Now that I've reached that goal, I should stop hiding behind the easy cases."

Well. That wasn't at all what Sharon was expecting. She quietly pulled her hand away from her purse and back towards her lap.

"What else?" Jocelyn asked.

The meeting lasted maybe about twenty minutes longer, Jocelyn describing some of her cases to Sharon and jotting down the names of other lawyers to contact on Sharon's behalf. As Sharon got up to leave, though, the barrister frowned at her pensively.

"I know that I started off this entire conversation by telling you that I don't take pupils," she said, "but I'd be interested in taking you on, if you think it would be a good fit. Consider it?"

"I will," Sharon replied. "Thanks for speaking with me."

And she showed herself out of Gray's Inn, through the quads of old brick buildings and the hushed manicured lawns, her body relaxing inch by inch as she emerged back into the regular rush and hustle of messy, imperfect, comforting London.

Sharon didn't try to keep Jocelyn's offer in mind. In fact, she told herself that she was quite certain that Jocelyn Knight's chambers were the very _last_ place she wanted to end up for a pupillage, or for any other reason. But for some reason, she caught herself considering the situation in daydreaming moments. Eventually, she sought her professor's guidance.

"Jocelyn offered to take you on as her pupil?" Reg Chesterfield let out a surprised chuckle. "I must confess, I was _not_ expecting that to be the result of your meeting, entirely because Jocelyn is, well, Jocelyn. Brilliant, brilliant mind—made a QC at a ridiculously young age, and royally deserved it, too. But mentoring younger lawyers has never been her strongest suit, shall we say."

"Every rational part of my brain is telling me not to take it," Sharon told him. "Even from talking with her for half an hour, I can just _tell_ that it would be a year of butting heads. Something about her personality..."

"She's intense," Reg agreed. "And can be unforgiving of people who aren't as single-minded as she is. But it would only be a year, Sharon. And I think you already know just how much you would learn from her. You wouldn't have to stay on as her junior, you know—although, if you did, the legal world would be your oyster. I know that we, as lawyers, like to place rationality above all other impulses. But if your gut is telling you to give it a go, against all rational arguments, then I think you should do it."

And so Sharon called Jocelyn Knight to arrange the start to her pupillage.

"Register with Gray's now, then, and we'll plan for you to start immediately after you finish your BVC," Jocelyn told Sharon. (Sharon considered asking for a week or so to recover from the rigours of academia, but quickly decided against it.) "If you have any questions between now and then, let me know, and otherwise, we'll plan to see you then."

"Thanks again," Sharon told her.

"I wouldn't have made an exception if I didn't see real potential," Jocelyn informed her. "Although, if I can offer some advice? First impressions are important, Sharon. In the future, always be sure to wear fresh stockings to an interview."

Sharon hung up wondering if she had made a colossal mistake. When she finally arrived back at Gray's Inn after her Bar Vocational Course, she opted to wear freshly pressed trousers to avoid any trouble.

"Good to see you," Jocelyn said by way of greeting, gesturing towards the desk that would be Sharon's. "I'd appreciate if you could summarise those affidavits by lunchtime. Let me know if you have any questions?"

"Bloody hell," muttered Sharon as she sat down and glanced through the stack of affidavits. Bewildered, she picked one up and began looking through it, wondering where even to start. After twenty minutes, she tossed it angrily back down on her desk and sighed heavily, then decided to stretch her legs and explore the chambers a bit.

"You must be Sharon," said a handsome young man in a well-tailored suit as Sharon peered round a doorframe into a nearby room. "Jocelyn didn't mention that you'd arrived. When did you get here?"

"An hour, two hours ago?" Sharon shrugged, trying not to scowl.

"Typical," muttered the man under his breath, and he rose from his desk and offered a hand to Sharon. "I'm Isaac, by the way. Jocelyn's junior. I would have introduced myself sooner, if I'd known you were here. How are things?"

Sharon made a neutral noise, and Isaac raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, sounds about right," he said. "Has she thrown a stack of documents at you, without any sort of guidance?"

Sharon hesitated, then nodded.

"Again, typical." Isaac grinned. "You know, most of the older barristers at Gray's Inn will proudly tell you that this is where the first production of _The Comedy of Errors _was performed. And most of the junior barristers who have worked with Jocelyn Knight will tell you that her chambers are where the longest-running production of _The Comedy of Errors_ is still being performed."

"Remind me which play that is?" Sharon asked, having not thought about Shakespeare since sixth form.

"The one with the twins?"

"It's Shakespeare. They all have twins."

Isaac laughed.

"The one with two sets of twins, separated in infancy," he clarified. "Temperamental masters and their beleaguered servants."

"So I'm in for a long year, is that what you're trying to tell me?"

"Don't get me wrong, Jocelyn's the absolute best in the business. Assuming she treats you like another junior, you're in for an unusually substantive second six. But her management demeanour can sometimes be, shall we say, lacking. Plus, she gets very cross if her chambers aren't stocked with teabags and milk at all times, and it's somehow my responsibility to make sure that they are." Isaac winked. "At any rate, I'm happy to answer any questions along the way that she doesn't bother addressing."

"Thank you." Sharon finally ventured a smile. "Well, in that case, what exactly am I supposed to be doing right now?"

With Isaac's help, Sharon managed to figure out what Jocelyn wanted from her summaries. Over the course of the week, she turned to him more than once for guidance in deciphering the less-than-thorough guidance that Jocelyn gave her.

"Tell me," she said to Isaac on Thursday evening, "am I doing anything at all right?"

Isaac glanced up from a brief that he was skimming.

"Yeah, of course," he told Sharon. "Jocelyn's been pretty pleased with your work. She might not tell you so outright, but if she's not chastising you, that's a good sign."

"God," groaned Sharon, collapsing into a chair. "Well, that's a relief, I suppose."

Isaac smiled sympathetically.

"Look, before you start worrying that this will be the longest year imaginable, take comfort in the fact that Jocelyn's in court next week? It means that things will be frantic around here, but you won't want to miss it."

And Isaac was right. Sharon spent Monday morning hurtling about Jocelyn's chambers, helping assemble binders and print off fresh copies of documents, silently cursing the day she let Professor Chesterfield talk her into this pupillage. But then Jocelyn stood up before the court, wigged and robed, her infuriatingly cool detachment suddenly a badge of professionalism.

It was the most brilliant performance Sharon had ever seen. By the end of Jocelyn's first speech, she knew that she had made the right decision.

"So?" Isaac asked when Sharon arrived back at Gray's Inn.

Sharon shook her head, speechless for a moment.

"Incredible," she said finally. "If I could be half the barrister that Jocelyn is, I'd count myself lucky."

"Yeah. Watching her in court is a good way to remind yourself why you want to be here. The number of times I've written out an application for the Crown Prosecution Service, only to then watch Jocelyn make one of her earth-shattering speeches..."

"And then not sent it?" Sharon frowned. "Why not, just to see what would happen?"

"But how could I, when I look at the opportunity I have here?" Isaac shrugged. "Look, I know that I complain about Jocelyn, more than I should. But she's as good as she is precisely _because _she's as uncompromising as she is. Does it drive me mad that she sometimes can't recognise that other people have normal lives, and that not everyone's brain can revolve around the law 24/7? Of course. But you have to be in the latter category to be as good as she is."

Privately, Sharon disagreed, but she could see Isaac's point. And, once her second six began, she began to agree with Jocelyn more than she wanted to admit.

"Good god, Sharon," Isaac sighed, coat in hand, as he stood next to Sharon's desk eyeing the pile of documents stacked on top of it. "You realise it's nine in the evening?"

"Still have work to do," Sharon replied shortly.

"Have you eaten yet?"

"I have to finish reviewing all of these," Sharon snapped, gesturing at the stack of paper.

"It's not going to wander off overnight, you know," Isaac reminded her.

"Look, Wednesday's my first day in court, and I _refuse_ to make a fool of myself in front of Jocelyn Knight," Sharon argued, brandishing an affidavit at her coworker.

"You'll be fine, I promise. And you're her _pupil_, she doesn't expect you to be perfect. Has she given you her Unassailable Wall of Evidence speech yet?"

"Her _what?_"

"Never mind. I'm going home. Don't stay too late?"

On Tuesday, Jocelyn called Sharon over for their first meeting since Sharon had begun working at her chambers.

"How's preparation going?" Jocelyn asked coolly.

Sharon stared at Jocelyn, who sat there calm and composed, her hands neatly clasped. For a wild moment, Sharon wondered what would happen if she just told Jocelyn to piss off. No doubt nerves were playing into her simmering rage, but Sharon couldn't help resenting the barrister—for being so certain of herself, for having all but ignored Sharon up to this point. For being the barrister that Sharon so desperately wanted to be, and for not lifting so much as a finger to teach Sharon how to reach that level.

"Fine," Sharon said.

Jocelyn raised an eyebrow.

"No questions?"

"Questions?" Sharon repeated. Of _course_ she had questions; it was her first bloody case, after all. She had so many questions that she didn't even know where to begin.

"Talk me through your case." Jocelyn gestured to the chair in front of her, and Sharon warily lowered herself into the seat. "From the beginning."

Sharon knew she had prepared everything as thoroughly as could be imagined. Jocelyn nodded almost imperceptibly as Sharon laid out the facts, then the arguments; she pursed her lips ever so slightly as Sharon stated a conclusion and sat back, defensively waiting for an assessment.

"On the whole, very good," Jocelyn said finally. "You've got a solid handle on all of the necessary legal elements and case law. Everything you need is already in your head. But here's how you could make your case stronger."

And as Jocelyn explained what she meant, all of the resentment that had gripped Sharon since she entered the room loosened and ebbed away. Every suggestion that Jocelyn made, every tip as to how to draw a clearer line from A to B, every argument that Jocelyn tilted and polished and reset at a slightly sharper angle—it was so incredibly _obvious_ to Sharon, once pointed out, and yet it made all the difference.

"Can't believe I missed that," Sharon muttered, shaking her head as she scrawled notes down on a legal pad.

"You're learning," Jocelyn reminded her. "Again, you focused on all of the right facts and law. Isaac mentioned that I'd failed before now to talk to you about building a wall of evidence? You clearly _know_ how to do that already; you have all of the right blocks. It's just a matter of learning how to fill in the gaps, to realign the bricks so that everything is more structurally sound."

Sharon nodded.

"How do you feel?" Jocelyn asked.

"Ready," Sharon answered.

And the next day, after her first appearance in court wrapped up, Sharon knew that she had been. Isaac shot her a wink as she returned to the bench when her argument was over, but what Sharon remembered most was the small smile on Jocelyn's inscrutable face. Even though Jocelyn's debrief consisted of nothing more than a few concise criticisms—don't speak so fast, always choose silence over speech while still thinking—Sharon thought she could detect a subtle note of pride in the older woman's tone.

From then on, the chambers functioned as more of a triangle. Isaac still remained Sharon's main source of advice and support, but from her rounds of preparation for court with Jocelyn, Sharon learned to defend her ideas clearly, draw logical connections between disparate elements, refine her rhetoric. Jocelyn remained as intimidating and aloof as ever, but Sharon knew that she had truly earned her boss's respect when the barrister asked her pupil to help Isaac on one of his cases. ("Thank _god_, I was suffocating under all of these," Isaac told Sharon, dropping an enormous pile of documents onto her desk.)

The pace of things around Gray's Inn only picked up for Sharon as Jocelyn's confidence in her abilities grew. And Jocelyn remained an exacting supervisor whose tolerance for Sharon's errors waned sharply as her pupil progressed from "learning" to "knowing." But even on the most hectic days and evenings and nights in chambers, even when Jocelyn had just undercut her sense of security with some unnecessarily sharp comment, Sharon found herself prematurely nostalgic for her time working for a legend like her current QC.

And then, only a month before the end of Sharon's pupillage, Isaac asked her over to his office.

"You look awfully serious," Sharon joked. "Am I in trouble?"

"Not at all," Isaac told her. "Er, not exactly sure how to say this, but I'm leaving."

Sharon stared at him.

"Really."

"Yeah." Isaac shrugged somewhat helplessly. "Truth is, talking it all through with you over the past year inspired me to finally just _apply_ to CPS, to see what would happen. And they've offered me a position. I start in two weeks."

"That's excellent!" Sharon's face broke into an enormous grin. "Congratulations! Don't see why you feel the need to act so embarrassed about it all."

"Well, here's the thing." Isaac sighed and looked down at his feet. "When I told Jocelyn that I was leaving, her exact reaction was to say nothing at all for ten seconds, then to wish me luck, and then to add, 'It's a good thing Sharon will still be here.'"

"Sorry, what?"

"She wants to hire you on as her new junior, Sharon," Isaac explained. "I'm sorry to have put you in such an uncomfortable position, but there it is. I don't think I need to explain to you all of the pros and cons of staying."

Sharon blinked.

"I honestly don't even know what to say," she admitted. "Lately, I've been feeling like Jocelyn hates me, for making as many stupid mistakes as I have recently. Would have thought she couldn't see the back of me soon enough."

"You know she thinks extremely highly of you," Isaac reminded her. "If she's being hypercritical, it means she thinks you can handle it—a means of showing confidence, in her own very Jocelyn way. You don't have to say yes, you know."

"I know," said Sharon, although they both knew that she would. "I'll miss having you around."

Isaac grinned sheepishly. He and Sharon had fallen into the rather unprofessional habit of relieving each other's stress, whenever they found themselves frantically working towards deadlines in the wee hours of the morning at Gray's Inn. They both understood implicitly that it was nothing at all serious, but Sharon still found their dalliances a welcome distraction from the pressures of their work. Besides, Isaac had been a far kinder and more supportive mentor than Jocelyn had ever even attempted to be, to date. Even if they still caught up over drinks now and again, it wouldn't be the same as having him on hand in chambers whenever Sharon needed reassurance that she wasn't completely bollocksing everything up.

"You should probably go talk to Jocelyn," Isaac reminded Sharon gently.

"Would you judge me if I confessed that she still sort of terrifies me?"

"That'd make two of us. Go on, she won't bite."

Sharon knocked gently on the frame of Jocelyn's door, then entered before she had been formally invited in.

"I was just talking to Isaac," she explained.

"Good," nodded Jocelyn. "Well?"

Sharon fiddled with the hem of her shirt with one hand.

"Aren't you even going to interview me?"

"What would be the point? You're my top choice. I've had a year to review your work and to see how you operate in chambers. And you know by now how I go about my business. It would be a relatively seamless transition, only you'd come out of it with a larger paycheck and more responsibility. So, it's your call."

"Knight and Bishop." Sharon grinned. "We'd be a regular chess set, wouldn't we. Minor pieces."

"Minor pieces can handily win matches," Jocelyn reminded her. "Can I take that as a yes?"

Sharon nodded.

"One thing, though." Jocelyn smiled at Sharon. "You once challenged me to take the hard cases. Please hold me to that, now that you'll have the authority to do so?"

Sharon had every intention of doing so, once Isaac had packed up all of his things and relinquished the junior's desk to Sharon. But only a month later, she realised that Isaac had left something with her that neither of them had expected or intended. For a week or so, she considered quitting then and there, but how could she, when she was so _enjoying_ her work? Now, instead of relying on Jocelyn's brilliant mind to help her build walls of evidence for her second-six cases, Sharon was helping the barrister prepare her own trials. Jocelyn still hadn't taken any of the riskier briefs that Sharon had suggested she take, but she certainly seemed to be considering them seriously, on Sharon's recommendation. And Sharon finally was confident enough in the rules of this game they called the law that she felt comfortable checking a grandmaster like Jocelyn, pushing back against certain arguments in active cases, offering her own criticisms. Sharon couldn't bear the thought of leaving it all behind, not when she was getting so _good_ at this.

But Sharon knew that she couldn't hide from Jocelyn's scrutiny forever, given that the QC's gaze was keen enough to notice if Sharon had laddered her stockings.

"I'm off for the weekend," Jocelyn announced around noon on a Thursday.

Sharon looked up and stared at Jocelyn, who never left chambers before six in the evening, let alone took an entire day off without first falling horribly ill.

"Going on holiday?" she joked.

"In a sense," Jocelyn shrugged. Sharon didn't expect to get more out of her reticent boss, but to her surprise, Jocelyn added after a moment, "Visiting family. I'll leave it to you to decide if that's leisure or business."

Sharon smiled appreciatively.

"Whereabouts?" she asked.

"Broadchurch." Sharon also had never seen Jocelyn smile the way that she did now, almost wistfully. "My hometown. Little seaside resort town in Dorset where everybody knows everybody. Quite different from London."

Sharon had a million more questions to ask, now that she was over the shock of remembering that Jocelyn was, in fact, a human being who must have family somewhere. But if Jocelyn was going to give Sharon a rare glance into her personal life, now seemed like as good a moment as ever to do the same.

"I've actually been meaning to ask about the leave policy here," Sharon began.

"You've been here over a year, has no one ever talked you through it?" Jocelyn frowned.

"Sick leave and such, yes. But I... I anticipate needing to be out for longer than just a few days."

Jocelyn looked as close to alarmed as Sharon had ever seen her.

"Are you all right?" she asked, in a tone that fully suggested that she thought Sharon was grievously ill.

"Yes, Jocelyn." Sharon sighed. "You'd have noticed it eventually, so I might as well tell you that I'm four months along. I thought I should give you some advance warning, so that you can make arrangements accordingly."

Jocelyn stared at Sharon.

"You're not going to sack me, are you?" Sharon asked finally.

"Don't be ridiculous," Jocelyn scoffed. "I'm sorry, I'm mostly just surprised. But I suppose I should say congratulations."

"Thank you."

Jocelyn nodded, and then, after a slight hesitation, added, "You _do_ plan to come back, don't you?"

"Of course," Sharon reassured her.

"Thank god for that," Jocelyn muttered, and then she nodded again and left for her long weekend. It wasn't until later that evening, after Sharon was done feeling relieved that that whole interaction hadn't been nearly as terrible as she'd feared, that she recognised how sorry Jocelyn would have been if Sharon had said that she was leaving for good.

Sharon took a full two months of maternity leave when Jonah was born, but even before she was due to be back in chambers, she was already reading through documents and ringing Jocelyn to discuss procedural manoeuvres. It was addictive, this legal life she lived, and Sharon both loved it and hated it—how she worked herself to a point of dysfunctional exhaustion on each case, on top of raising a young child on her own, and yet still came crawling back for more of Jocelyn's unreasonable demands, desperate to prove herself to the older barrister.

"You're not heading out now, are you?" Jocelyn asked her one night.

"Jocelyn," croaked Sharon, barely awake, "I've had to ask my sister to pick up my son from daycare every single day this week. I haven't even been home to put him to bed since Sunday!"

"Well, I'm sorry, but these need to be filed by tomorrow morning," Jocelyn told Sharon, dropping a stack of papers into her arms. "Excellence requires long hours, Sharon, you know that. And it's not as if I'm not also spending my evenings here, proofreading and editing."

_Yes, but you don't have a two year old who apparently keeps asking his auntie where his mum is at bedtime_, Sharon grumbled internally as she sat down to proofread the documents.

The thing was, even if Jocelyn didn't cut Sharon any slack when it came to Jonah in the abstract, she always doted on him when he appeared in her chambers, in her own very Jocelyn manner. The first time she ever met Jonah face-to-face was on a rainy Saturday afternoon when Jonah was three and Sharon had brought him into Gray's Inn while she finished some work. Jocelyn paused in Sharon's doorway when she saw the little boy watching the rain fall on the lawns beyond Sharon's window. (Being her eagle-eyed self, it certainly didn't escape Jocelyn's notice that the child bore a striking resemblance not only to his mother, but also to his mother's predecessor as Jocelyn's junior.)

"Oh, thank god you're here," Sharon said, looking up as she sensed Jocelyn's presence. "I was just speaking with Peter, and it sounds like the new deadline for the _Mercer_ case has been pushed to Tuesday, instead of..."

She stopped as Jonah, who had tumbled off his seat by the window as soon as Jocelyn appeared, darted behind her desk to hide.

"I'm afraid I've frightened him," Jocelyn commented with a slight laugh.

"He's just being shy. Jonah," Sharon called, "please say hello to Mummy's boss Miss Knight, will you?"

Jonah's enormous brown eyes appeared for a moment around the corner of Sharon's desk, then disappeared.

Jocelyn, trying not to smile too much, likewise disappeared for about fifteen minutes. When she reappeared with the hem of her trousers slightly damp from the rain outside, Sharon was still trying to reschedule her next week around the new deadline, and Jonah was still hiding under her desk, having decided it was a make-believe cave to explore.

"I thought he might be able to use these," Jocelyn explained, offering a plastic bag to Sharon. "It can't be that enjoyable to be trapped here all afternoon, with nothing else to do."

Sharon took the bag from Jocelyn and pulled out a box of crayons and a colouring book.

"Ooh, Jonah, look at these!" she exclaimed, and Jonah reemerged tentatively from his pretend-cave. "What do you say to Miss Knight?"

"Thank you, Miss Knight," said Jonah shyly, staring at Jocelyn with his enormous eyes as he took the crayons and colouring book from Sharon.

"Thank you," Sharon echoed. She smiled at Jocelyn, who merely nodded and then retreated to her own desk to reschedule her own week around the new _Mercer_ deadline.

And so things progressed. Sharon's professional reputation, tied to Jocelyn's and to a string of solid wins, continued to rise. But Jocelyn still wasn't taking the briefs that Sharon pressed her to take, the ones whose clients were trickier and less popular to defend, the ones in which Jocelyn would be speaking for people who needed someone to speak for them because they couldn't do so for themselves. Whenever Sharon took a brief on her own, she bristled at Jocelyn's unwillingness to alleviate her workload, and seethed with resentment whenever she lost her case as a result. And it never became easier for Sharon to have to trade evenings with her son for long hours in chambers, especially when Jonah became old enough to find the situation unfair, rather than normal. Sharon hated how guilty she felt when Jonah whinged to her about how Andrew and Quentin and Rohit's mums never missed _their_ bedtimes. Yet Jocelyn never wavered in her insistence that Sharon be present for as long as it took to finish work to her own very exacting standards. Never mind the fact that she always asked after Jonah; never mind the fact that, when Sharon had surprised Jocelyn with a homemade cake on one birthday weekend that Jocelyn insisted on spending in chambers, Jocelyn had let a very excited Jonah blow the candles out on her behalf.

"Look, you chose this career, Shar," her sister Theresa reminded her the evening of Jonah's own fifth birthday party, as Sharon ranted about how thinly stretched she felt. "And it's a demanding one, and you're managing to do a damn good job of it, by anyone's standards."

"Yes," agreed Sharon, "but I feel like shit that you're having to more or less raise my son for me, because my bloody boss won't let me _be_ there for him! And for what? She's never going to stick her neck out for the people who actually _need_ justice. No, she likes nice, safe wins that make her look good, and she's gonna keep on tallying them up, because she's not bloody _brave_ enough to take a real risk."

"I thought you thought she was brilliant?"

"She is," groaned Sharon. "That's the problem. I wish I didn't worship her the way I do, but I can't help it. I crave her approval even though it means I let her be absolutely horrible to me."

"Well, you don't need to stay with your horrible, abusive boss, do you?" Theresa shrugged. "Have a little more confidence in yourself and stop caring so much about what she thinks. You could go practise on your own, work only on briefs that you actually care about. What's the worst that _could_ happen, if you left?"

What _was_ the worst that could happen? That question stayed with Sharon over the next several months, itching in one corner of her brain, daring her to scratch it.

In the end, Sharon couldn't really say if the Lord Berringham fiasco was a cause or a consequence of her departure.

"Why on earth _wouldn't_ you take it?" Sharon argued. "You couldn't get a clearer betrayal of public trust! Not recusing himself from hearing cases brought against corporate interests in which he held a financial stake..."

"And his counsel will correctly argue that none of it was illegal, per se," Jocelyn insisted. "Yes, there were financial conflicts of interest, but Lord Berringham provided very sound legal reasoning for his rulings in each of the those cases. It's going to be difficult to prove that his business interests actually clouded his ability to adjudicate these particular cases fairly, because of that. I just don't think it's a brief worth pursuing."

"How can you say that?" Sharon snapped. "It's his fault for not disclosing all of this from the start, for making sure that no one could even _accuse_ him of engaging in some sort of quid pro quo. And even if he provided solid legal reasons for the outcomes of each of those cases, who's to say that his personal interests didn't still influence those outcomes? These people have to be held _accountable_ for corruption, Jocelyn! Besides, _someone's_ going to prosecute him, and you might as well be the one to do it."

"You can't be so emotional," Jocelyn insisted coolly. "Rationality, Sharon. That's how we win cases, by being dispassionate and rational. Our clients don't engage us for displays of histrionics."

"Yeah, but maybe that's your problem, Jocelyn," Sharon exploded. "You're like a bloody Vulcan, all rationality and no compassion whatsoever. How can you look at the families who've been screwed over by those companies that Berringham let off the hook, and tell _them_ to be dispassionate about all of this? These are their _lives_."

"I know that," Jocelyn replied stiffly.

"And you always say that the law is a noble cause, so, why not treat it that way? Why not use it to demonstrate that even a bloody Law Lord can and should be held equally liable for illegal acts as anyone else..."

"Because my role is to apply the law as it exists," Jocelyn argued. "I don't get to create it, Sharon, and neither do you. And right now, I simply don't see enough evidence to support the claim that Lord Berringham fulfilled his duties as a judge in any manner less than impartial, financial interest or no. Perhaps it's distasteful, and unquestionably it was irresponsible of him, but it's not illegal enough for me to waste my time on it."

"_Waste your time on...?_"

"Tabloids love this sort of gossip," Jocelyn interrupted her. "But we have actual work to do. Settle down, Sharon."

Sharon stared at Jocelyn.

"No," she said simply. "I'm through with this. There's always going to be some excuse for not taking the briefs that are worth pursuing, isn't there. And I'm not going to waste my life pandering to powerful interests, letting the wealthy and well-connected get a free pass by dint of their privilege, helping to entrench all of the inequality within the justice system that I went into this profession to try to eradicate."

"Sharon..."

"You know what hurts the most, Jocelyn?" Sharon's face contorted, then settled back into a scornful sneer. "I admired you so much. Much as there were days that I wanted to shove you into the Thames for being so damn demanding and uncaring, I always trusted that, in the end, you would do the right thing. But you've only ever really liked playing the hero in the cases that made you look heroic, haven't you. You've never been there for all of the unpopular clients who still deserve their defence. And to know now that you'll just sit back and let the status quo continue to screw over the common people, because you're too self-important to risk your immaculate reputation by doing _anything _that could set you at odds against another member of your Oxbridge legal set? So much for the nobility of the law."

Jocelyn seemed to be temporarily stunned into silence.

"Take that back," she demanded quietly after a moment.

"Thanks for teaching me this whole system as well as you did, Jocelyn. Because I'm gonna stretch the rules to their very limits and subvert them to destroy the whole damn thing from the inside out," Sharon snarled. "Have fun buying your own teabags and milk."

Jocelyn fumed quietly for a few moments after Sharon slammed the door behind her, but she managed to seat herself at her desk and get some reading done while she calmed down. Half an hour later, she went over to Sharon's office, prepared to talk sensibly with her junior if she had likewise cooled off. But Sharon's desk was bare, other than a few neat stacks of documents and briefs, and all of Sharon's spare blazers and photos of little Jonah had disappeared. Jocelyn stood in the empty office for a few moments, then closed her eyes, shook herself, and returned to her own desk and the work that still needed to be done.

It would be a long time before Jocelyn Knight and Sharon Bishop went head-to-head in court. But Sharon knew that they were enemies from this point forward, her disillusioned self and her erstwhile boss. Sharon remained polite whenever they encountered each other, but there was no mistaking the adversarial stance that she now took vis-à-vis Jocelyn. Knight and Bishop had once collaborated as part of the same army, on the Queen's side. Now, they both still were constrained by the same understood set of rules, still surveyed the same field from the neat little boxes from which they operated. But Sharon was starting each round from across the board, manoeuvring around pawns as needed, chipping away at the intricate systems of privilege and power around which Jocelyn had built her entire existence, move by calculated move.


	2. Broadchurch, 1998

Jocelyn hated to admit to herself how much she missed Dorset. It wasn't a lie to say that her heart belonged to London—her life belonged to London—but something about those gorgeous Jurassic Coast cliffs always made her emit a sigh of longing whenever she drove back into Broadchurch. Ironic, since Jocelyn had spent her childhood itching to escape from her quiet, idyllic little hometown. Even High Wycombe had seemed bustling and exotic to her schoolgirl self, when her mother had sent her off to Buckinghamshire on her own. Only now, in her fifties, was she finally recognising the intrinsic beauty of the corner of England where her younger self had stood on the cliffs and stared out over the ocean, daydreaming about cityscapes and about a future that she felt she could reach out and brush with the tips of her fingers.

In fairness, Jocelyn would have had to come back to Broadchurch for personal reasons, if not for professional ones. Her mother was getting on in years, and had finally begun to acknowledge that she needed to move into a facility of some sort. All the more convenient, then, that she had been asked by her mother's neighbours to come in and handle a local dispute between a rope-makers' union and a fishing supply company. She moved into her childhood bedroom at her mother's house for the month or so that she estimated being in town, reasoning that she could help cook and clean and pack, when she wasn't in court.

Jocelyn was, at heart, a prosecutor. She tried to view every brief she took in the most engaging light possible, but the fact was that she simply didn't find these sorts of contractual disputes nearly as interesting as assault or burglary or homicide. Jocelyn loved finding the narrative in each case she worked, and the narratives ran so strong in criminal cases: clear-cut paradigms of perpetrator and victim, right and wrong, easy to spell out for a jury. This, by contrast, was a matter whose narrative lay in the untangling of densely packed legalese, the sort of thing that would put any self-respecting jury to sleep immediately (although, thankfully, this hearing would only require the judge to understand Jocelyn's arguments).

So Jocelyn was surprised to look out into the audience of the courtroom, day after day as the hearings dragged on, and see not only the parties, but also an attentive blonde woman, who arrived every morning with a pencil tucked behind one ear, and who scribbled away on a notepad throughout the proceedings.

"Good speech in there," the woman said to Jocelyn one day as the latter was leaving the courthouse.

"Thank you," Jocelyn replied.

"Your best yet, maybe, although I still sense you're holding back a bit. I've been trying to imagine you at some high-stakes murder trial back in London, operating with all cylinders firing. Would be quite a show, I'm guessing."

The woman winked. Jocelyn stared.

"You're not a party to this case, I take it?" she said finally. "Journalist, then?"

"Maggie Radcliffe, _The Broadchurch Echo_," the blonde woman introduced herself, holding out a hand that Jocelyn took. "And I know who you are, of course."

"Of course," Jocelyn repeated. Her mother, being a bit of a snob, only had _The Times_ delivered; the barrister made a mental note to go find a copy of _The_ _Broadchurch __Echo_ and see exactly how the paper was covering the hearings. "You're not from here, are you?"

"Just relocated maybe, I dunno, seven months ago?" Maggie shrugged. "Can't imagine a more gorgeous place to have grown up. I'm madly in love with this town."

"Well," laughed Jocelyn, "I hope your career doesn't suffer for your being here."

"I'd say it's thriving," grinned Maggie. "People always overlook local news, but that's what's most interesting to a community, when it comes down to it, isn't it? Of course it's important to read about civil war in Bosnia, or whatever's happening with the American president, but in the end, it's what our neighbours do that affects us most on a daily basis."

"And I'm sure the community appreciates it. In any event, I'm very impressed with your willingness to listen patiently to all of the legal jargon that we've been spewing in there."

"Someone has to translate it all to the general public," Maggie shrugged. "And even if contract law isn't particularly riveting, you're definitely the most captivating thing this courthouse has seen since I started this reporting beat."

Jocelyn didn't quite know how to respond to that, so instead she nodded politely to Maggie, and hurried off to drive her mother to a visiting appointment with another care home.

She didn't see Maggie Radcliffe again for several more days, until the journalist approached a table at a local coffee shop where Jocelyn was sipping an espresso and re-reading part of a brief.

"How're things?" Maggie asked. She gestured towards the brief. "That for the hearing next Monday? Any noteworthy orations in store for us?"

"You'll just have to see for yourself," Jocelyn replied, slipping the brief into her bag so that the journalist couldn't read any of it. "How's the world around Broadchurch?"

"May I?" Maggie asked, pulling out the chair opposite Jocelyn and dropping into it. "Well, if you _really_ want to know..."

"I know, I know, I could buy your newspaper."

Maggie shrugged.

"I'm just as happy to sit here and relay it all to you, verbally," she offered.

And she did. Jocelyn listened, enchanted, not quite sure why she was smiling quite so broadly, trying to remember the last time she'd felt this light-hearted about, well, anything. If Jocelyn was honest with herself, Maggie could have been sitting here and reading the phone book aloud, and Jocelyn might well feel the same way.

"You're not angling for a feature, are you?" she finally asked, hoping that her tone was joking enough to hide her real suspicion.

Maggie rolled her eyes.

"Would you believe, I'm really not," she told Jocelyn. "Just trying to get to know you as a person."

"Really?" Jocelyn tried to keep from beaming. "Why?"

Maggie raised her eyebrows.

"Like I've said, you put on a very impressive show in court."

"And?"

"Consider me impressed," Maggie finished. "Dinner sometime?"

"Oh, no, I... I couldn't," Jocelyn stammered. "I mean, my mother, her health hasn't been that excellent, so I've been doing a lot of cooking for her..."

"I see," Maggie nodded.

The next day, she turned up on the Knights' doorstep and handed an enormous lasagne over to Jocelyn.

"Figured you were probably busy with hearing prep, didn't need cooking slowing you down, too," she informed Jocelyn.

"I do hope you've made one for my opposing counsel, as well?" Jocelyn laughed.

"Not a chance, petal," Maggie winked as she turned to leave.

(Jocelyn's mother loved the lasagne. It lasted all week, and when Maggie came by to retrieve her casserole dish, she brought another.)

It wasn't until the hearings were wrapping up that Jocelyn finally mustered the nerve to flag Maggie down outside the courthouse.

"I really can't thank you enough for taking care of us, these past two weeks." Jocelyn paused, her heart suddenly beating as rapidly as it had when she was a second-six pupil, only just beginning to appear in court. "Can I make it up to you sometime?"

Maggie smiled.

"Dinner, finally?"

"Come to London," Jocelyn told the journalist. "I'm leaving Broadchurch this evening, and I have a series of cases that are going to keep me tethered to the City for the next few months. But, if you can pull yourself away from work for a few days, I'd be delighted to host you."

Maggie's expression had morphed from a brow furrowed in confusion to a grin over the course of this explanation.

"I'd like that," she told the barrister. "I really would. And who knows, if I hang around the Old Bailey long enough, I might finally catch one of your more explosive speeches."

"Well." Jocelyn awkwardly offered a hand for Maggie to take in a rather formal handshake. "Keep in touch, will you? And good luck with everything."

Jocelyn returned to London, and had no idea if Maggie would actually take her up on her offer. She dove headlong into her next case, in a semi-successful attempt to distract herself. And then, the week before Jocelyn was scheduled to be back in the full heat of a trial, Maggie rang to ask if Jocelyn had been serious about her visiting.

"Of course," Jocelyn replied, almost breathlessly. "But I must warn you that I might not be able to play as good a hostess as you'd like me to. Big criminal trial coming up."

"Wouldn't have it any other way," Maggie answered. "Besides, that means you'll need someone to keep you fed, no?"

And Maggie certainly kept her promise. She arrived in London late on a Friday evening, and, upon hearing that Jocelyn had forgotten to eat dinner because of a pending deadline, immediately bustled into the kitchen of Jocelyn's flat and began whipping up some food ("Just carbonara, nothing fancy"). Jocelyn gladly allowed herself to be distracted until Maggie began yawning from the end of the couch where she had curled up after dinner, catlike, with a cup of tea. Once the journalist had retreated to Jocelyn's guest room, the barrister washed all the dishes, then stayed up working until the wee hours of the morning.

Maggie did her fair share of sight-seeing over the course of the weekend, as Jocelyn locked herself in her chambers at Gray's Inn to research and write and review and edit. In the evenings, though, Jocelyn always was sure to carve out time for dinner, which Maggie kept insisting on cooking in Jocelyn's own kitchen. And Jocelyn—who was accustomed to being entirely self-sufficient, who had built a career around taking care of other people's problems—thought about protesting, but didn't, because it was so nice to be taken care of, for once, and especially by someone who seemed to so enjoy taking care of her.

"I do hope you realise that you don't need to do all of this?" Jocelyn said on Sunday evening, as Maggie nudged a delicious-smelling sole meunière filet from a skillet onto Jocelyn's plate.

"This your way of telling me you don't like my cooking?" Maggie asked impishly.

Jocelyn, who just taken a bite of fish, closed her eyes to savour the taste with a small sigh. Maggie laughed.

"Oh, goodness, no," Jocelyn replied, once she was done enjoying her mouthful. "I just mean, you're my guest, and you shouldn't be doing all of this work."

Maggie put the skillet down on a trivet, then reached across the table and laid her hand on Jocelyn's arm.

"Believe me, petal, if I didn't want to do it, I wouldn't," she reassured the barrister.

Jocelyn tried to say something, but the words seemed to have caught in her throat. It wasn't until Maggie sat back in her seat, and began digging into her own food, that time finally seemed to flow again at a normal speed.

"Well," Jocelyn finally managed, "can I at least take you out to dinner? My last day in court this week is Thursday, which I know is your last evening here, but it's the only evening that I won't need to spend preparing for the following day, and..."

"I'd love that," smiled Maggie.

The trial began on Monday, a case of violent assault charged as attempted murder. Jocelyn, representing the Crown, did what she did best, and methodically built up her unassailable wall of evidence before the jury, carefully demonstrating the construction so that the jurors could easily follow. Maggie watched wide-eyed, her notepad and pencil absent for once.

"Still no fireworks," Jocelyn apologised on Tuesday evening. "I hope you're not disappointed."

"How could I be, when I get to watch you be Sherlock Holmes up there, piecing everything together?" Maggie laughed. "Plus, I'm beginning to think that dramatic courtroom speeches simply aren't your style, and that's fine. You're absolutely brilliant, just the way you are."

Jocelyn had thought that she was long past the age where praise could make her blush. She was wrong.

Thursday dawned sunny and crisp, gusts of wind sending the branches of trees awhirl and bits of rubbish fluttering along the gutters of Holborn. Jocelyn's wig blew off outside the Old Bailey in one particularly lusty blast, and Maggie chased it down for her, laughing. Jocelyn's stomach might have done a flip every time she remembered that she was taking Maggie out to dinner that evening, but all of her nerves over appearing in court had long since disappeared. True to form, she had saved her best for last, and delivered a measured but forceful closing argument that left the jury unconsciously nodding their collective agreement. The verdict came in guilty.

Afterwards, Maggie met the victorious prosecutor outside with a joyful whoop.

"That was incredible!" she cheered, throwing her arms around Jocelyn. "Bloody incredible! My god, it was like being in the middle of some courtroom drama on telly."

"You really think so?" asked Jocelyn.

"Really," promised Maggie, grinning from ear to ear. "Know I've said so before, but honestly, you're amazing."

Maggie's arms were still draped around Jocelyn's neck, and her face was only inches from the barrister's. The journalist, still smiling but with an edge of bashfulness in her eyes, moved a millimetre closer, and Jocelyn felt her breath catch expectantly.

And it was exactly then that Sharon Bishop walked past and, upon recognising her former boss, did something of a double-take.

"Jocelyn?"

"Sharon!" Jocelyn pulled away from Maggie abruptly, flustered, her heart beating far too quickly. "How... how nice to see you. It's been a while."

"It has." Sharon glanced curiously at Maggie. "Aren't you going to introduce us?"

"Oh, er, Maggie, this is my former colleague, Sharon Bishop; and, Sharon, this is my—friend, Maggie Radcliffe, who's up visiting from Dorset."

"Hmm." Sharon's eyebrows raised slightly as she extended a hand to Maggie. "Pleasure to meet you, Ms Radcliffe. It's impossible to work with Jocelyn without hearing about the idyllic Broadchurch, at some point or another."

"Well, it truly is a remarkable place," Maggie replied, shaking Sharon's hand. "I hope you get a chance to see it for yourself, one of these days."

"And you're a barrister, as well?" Sharon asked, her eyes flickering between Maggie and Jocelyn.

"Oh, no, just spectating," Maggie laughed. "I write for the local rag in Broadchurch, and covered one of Jocelyn's cases down there, so she invited me up to London to see her perform in her element."

"Indeed. And?"

"Well, if you used to work with Jocelyn, I'm sure you know!" Maggie grinned.

Sharon quirked an eyebrow at Jocelyn.

"Closing arguments today?"

Jocelyn nodded.

"Big finish, per usual?"

Jocelyn nodded again.

"Jury wrap up deliberations in record time?"

"Half an hour!" Maggie chimed in.

"All sounds about right." Sharon glanced at her watch. "I have to run, but good seeing you, Jocelyn. Really nice meeting you, too," she added to Maggie, "and enjoy your stay in London."

Sharon shot Jocelyn a significant look as she turned away. And Jocelyn, feeling like her heart was sinking into her entrails, carefully tucked her hands into the pockets of her coat, so that there would be no risk of Maggie brushing her fingers against Jocelyn's as they walked down the street together.

Jocelyn had been nervous about dinner with Maggie all day long, but by the time they arrived at the restaurant, her stomach was twisted in knots for completely unexpected reasons. Maggie remained as charming and witty and utterly delightful as always, but although Jocelyn tried to smile and laugh like a normal person, instead half of her attention was focused on who was entering and exiting the restaurant, on who from her elite legal circles might be watching and judging.

"Everything all right, petal?" Maggie asked, halfway through dinner.

"Oh, yes." Jocelyn lied. "Yes, of course."

Because she _couldn't_ just tell Maggie. Couldn't just explain that Maggie was the best thing that had happened to Jocelyn in years; that the mere thought of the journalist made Jocelyn's heart skip a beat; that she'd kept several long-outdated copies of _The Broadchurch Echo_ that she'd picked up before she left town the last time, just to have a bit of Maggie in close proximity. Couldn't admit how completely infatuated she was with Maggie's infectious sunniness, her quick laugh, her inquisitive nature.

But most of all, Jocelyn couldn't defend the fact that, despite her infatuation, she simply wasn't _ready_ to become who (and what) Maggie wanted her to be. Not in the public eye. Not if it meant being subject to the scrutiny of the cloistered, conservative members of her profession. Not if it meant fielding politely bemused reactions like Sharon's, from even the people who knew her best and might not be surprised.

No, best to do what Jocelyn always did. Best to wrap these feelings up, to be stored away in some discreet chest, smothered under layers and layers of propriety and ambition and pride and fear. Best not to even let Maggie know, because if Maggie knew—and if Maggie reciprocated—then Jocelyn wouldn't have the foggiest idea how to proceed. People only responded to briefs that were submitted. And cases left unfiled could never be won, but likewise could never be lost.

By the time they returned to Jocelyn's flat, the barrister's quietly agitated distraction had dimmed even Maggie's chipper demeanour.

"Jocelyn?" she asked, before turning in for the night. "If there's anything that I've said or done..."

"No," Jocelyn insisted, very glad that she had never been the type to burst into tears when her heart was breaking. "No, you've been the most perfect guest imaginable, Maggie. Thank you, for being here, in spite of my somewhat mad schedule."

Maggie smiled, her expression tinged with regret.

"It truly was an honour, to get to watch you in court. You're made for it."

"Thank you," said Jocelyn softly.

In the silence that followed, Maggie stared at the ground, and tucked a strand of hair behind the ear that usually propped up her pencil.

"I'm leaving on a very early train," she reminded Jocelyn finally. "Won't want to wake you, when I'm creeping out, so I guess I'll say thank you again now, and goodbye."

"Only for now," Jocelyn insisted. "I'll be back sometime soon, to help my mother move into her care home. So I'll see you around."

Maggie let out half of a ragged laugh.

"Good," she said, and seemed to mean it, although her eyes were still sad. "I'll put the spare key back under the second flower pot, then, as I head out."

Jocelyn nodded, and when Maggie turned to retreat into the guest room, she said, "Maggie?"

"Yes?" Maggie answered, turning back towards Jocelyn, her eyes cautiously brighter.

Jocelyn had always prided herself on being courageous. Reading law in an era when most of her peers were men, forging her way in the profession assertively enough to be noticed but graciously enough to avoid making enemies, tackling the most grisly murders and gruesome cases of abuse and violence on behalf of the Crown. Virtually everyone she knew professionally described her as _tough_, as _uncompromising_, as _strong_. Timidity was not a trait associated with Jocelyn Knight QC, who handled every new challenge with her signature unsentimental determination.

Yet here Jocelyn was, standing in the midst of a rapidly changing world, staring at a woman who might dare to face it all by her side. And, try as she might, she couldn't summon up the strength she needed, when she wanted it most.

"Safe travels tomorrow," Jocelyn said softly, instead of saying what she desperately wanted Maggie to know. "Let me know when you're back in Broadchurch."

And so the moment passed. But Jocelyn sometimes dug its memory out from where she had buried it under the rest of her emotions, unwound it from the smothering layers and held it lovingly up to the light for examination. Something bittersweet and painful and yet indescribably beautiful was captured from that week and frozen in Jocelyn's memory, amber-like. Whenever she saw Maggie on her trips back to Dorset, they exchanged pleasantries filled with genuine warmth, but the journalist's eyes retained that glint of sorrow that had appeared there on the night that Jocelyn's courage had failed her. Jocelyn loved every aspect of that crystallised moment in London—the wind blowing off her wig before the Old Bailey, the heady elation from her victory in court, the comfortable weight of Maggie's arms on her shoulders—but perhaps her favourite part of the recollection was how Maggie's eyes had been so bright with hope whenever she looked at Jocelyn.


	3. London, 2008

Sharon couldn't count the number of times she had walked into a prison before. Even when her brain wasn't reeling like it was now, by this point in her career, the routine felt as natural as making tea in the morning. But Sharon had only ever entered a prison with the confidence and purpose of a barrister, like an actor striding through the door of a theatre, gearing up for a knockout of a show. Today, her hands shook as she handed security her ID, as she sat down at one of the tables in the visitors area.

When they brought Jonah in, it took all of Sharon's resolve not to burst into tears.

"Mum," he said quietly as the guards pushed him towards the seat across from her.

"Oh, god," replied Sharon in a quavering voice. Her hands convulsively reached for Jonah's, but the professional in her reined them back. No touching the prisoners, she had always been very clear with her clients. And Sharon Bishop followed her own rules.

"Are you okay?" she asked instead, trying her hardest to keep her voice level.

"Yeah," Jonah replied after a moment.

What a stupid question for her to ask. Of course her boy wasn't _okay_. Sharon folded and then refolded her hands.

"We'll get you a good barrister," she promised. "The best. As soon as possible."

"You're not gonna defend me?" Jonah asked, hurt in his eyes.

Sharon closed her own eyes tightly to block out the view.

"I can't," she finally choked out. "I can't. It would be too much. No." Her eyes flew open. "But I promise you, Jonah, you _will_ have the best legal representation this country can offer. Trust me?"

"Yeah," her son answered quietly. "I do."

Sharon nodded.

"I didn't mean for it to happen, Mum," Jonah continued softly. "Things just escalated. We were out at the pub, right after exams finished, and some lads saw Aaron and Geoff holding hands, and they started following us and screaming all sorts of shit, and when one of them hit Aaron, I just... I lost my temper. I was trying to help my friend. I never meant for anything like this to happen."

"I know you didn't," Sharon whispered. "I know. I'll be back soon, all right? Just as soon as I've been able to call around, find you the representation you need. Until then, stay strong, you hear me?"

"I will." Jonah swallowed. "I'm so sorry, Mum. So sorry. Please, forgive me."

Sharon stood and gripped the back of her chair to keep herself from charging around the table and taking her boy in her arms.

"I love you," she said instead, and then all but fled the prison.

Sharon drove straight from the prison to Gray's Inn. When she was stopped by the receptionist—some spineless young man whom she had never seen before—Sharon ignored him and barged straight into Jocelyn's chambers.

"I need you to take a brief," she said.

Jocelyn glanced up at Sharon with a scowl, her wig in one hand. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Sharon thought back to the first time she'd entered these chambers, terrified that she would make a bad impression in such grand surroundings. The chambers hadn't changed a bit, but by this point, Sharon was fairly certain that she no longer gave a damn what Jocelyn thought of her.

"I'm off to court," Jocelyn said coolly. "Make an appointment for this afternoon, when I'm back."

"Jocelyn, you have to listen to me," Sharon persisted. "It's my boy. You remember Jonah? You let him blow out the candles on your birthday cake, once."

"Oh?" Jocelyn's frown turned from one of annoyance to one of concern. "What's happened to him?"

Sharon took a deep breath.

"He's been arrested. Homicide charge. Manslaughter."

Jocelyn raised an eyebrow.

"Dangerous driving?"

"No."

"Make an appointment," Jocelyn repeated, gesturing at the clock on the wall. "I can't discuss this right now."

"He was defending a friend," Sharon explained. "Fight at a pub. Some arsehole punched a friend of his from uni."

"Sharon..."

"And you know why it all started?" Sharon pressed on. "Because that friend of his, who got punched? He had the audacity to hold hands in public with his boyfriend."

Jocelyn paused as she picked up a binder from her desk.

"Jocelyn, you _have_ to take this case."

"I don't _have_ to do anything."

"You're the best in the business," Sharon insisted. "You know Jonah. And..."

Jocelyn froze, fixing Sharon with a terrifying glare.

"And?"

"Oh, come on, Jocelyn, don't think I don't remember you and that journalist," Sharon burst out. "Surely this kind of case would mean something to you for that alone?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," said Jocelyn icily.

"Well, fine, it was none of my fucking business, I get that, but..."

"But what?" Jocelyn violently pulled a blazer off of her coatrack.

Sharon glared at Jocelyn, then slammed a clenched fist onto the top of the desk.

"How the _fuck_ does someone like you, with the world at her feet, spend so much of her time running away from herself?" she snarled. "You know what, Jocelyn? I always knew that you were cautious about how you conducted yourself in every single fucking scenario imaginable, and I always knew that you didn't like taking on risky cases, but now I can see that you're really just a coward."

"_Excuse me?_"

"Yeah," Sharon jeered. "Because this is what you've always done, isn't it? You start to care too much about someone, and you push them away as fast as possible. Forget the journalist for a minute. I remember how much you liked Jonah when he was a kid. You never went out to buy more tea for the office _once_, but you went and bought him crayons in the middle of a rainstorm. And now, what? Too afraid of actually bloody _connecting_ with another human being to want to look them in the eye and promise you'll be there for them? Building another one of your unassailable walls around yourself, to keep out anyone who might make you remember that you're not a fucking _robot_...?"

"That's enough." Blood pounded in Jocelyn's ears as she took a step forward and stared down her former pupil. "I'm a barrister, Sharon. My job is to pursue justice, not to cherry-pick clients based on how much I liked them as children. I'm sorry about your son, but it doesn't sound like a winning case."

She pushed past Sharon towards the door of her chambers.

"Jocelyn, please," Sharon begged. "I swear I'll never ask you for anything again. Defend my son. You know that the Jocelyn Knight who once stood up for immigrants in Whitechapel would."

Jocelyn's usually steady strides faltered just slightly.

"Send me the files," she said, without looking back at Sharon.

Jocelyn went through the files when they arrived, twice. Plenty of witnesses to the fight, from start to finish. Plenty of people who had heard the strings of threats and epithets being hurled at Jonah and his friends, leading up to the encounter. Plenty of alcohol, too, of course. The problem was that Jonah had continued to hit the other man, long after he had stopped the assault on his friend. A jury was only going to buy self-defence up to a point. It looked like a losing battle to Jocelyn, unless she was missing something big. And Jocelyn Knight didn't like taking hopeless cases.

_This is what I have,_ Sharon had written in a note that had arrived with the files. _We need you, Jocelyn. Please call me when you're ready._

But Jocelyn didn't call, not even when the increasingly desperate messages from Sharon began piling up in her voicemail. She started taking routes that avoided passing Sharon's chambers, whenever she had to make her way through Bloomsbury; even stopped stepping outside Gray's Inn at lunchtime, for fear she would run into Sharon on her way to Konditor & Cook for a coffee and a slice of Curly Whirly cake. _Don't think I don't remember you and that journalist_, Sharon had said. She never had been good at acknowledging the invisible boundaries that exist in a professional setting, especially one like the legal world, with its robes and its wigs and its musty adherence to an etiquette designed for titled straight white men. Maybe the Jocelyn Knight of the 1970s would have charged into battle for this cause. But the Jocelyn Knight of 2008, QC, was too comfortable in her Gray's Inn chambers to risk shaking things up too much. She didn't like taking punches, and she'd become damn good at dodging them over the course of an illustrious career strategically built on the most challenging cases that she felt she could take without stumbling. She had a reputation to uphold in this old boys' club of a legal hierarchy, after all. And if that reputation was going to slip, it was not going to be because of Sharon Bishop—Sharon Bishop, who was brilliant and determined and had somehow managed to have it all, who had stood on the shoulders of the giants of Jocelyn's generation and then sneered down at them for not being able to see nearly as far.

Who couldn't even see that Jocelyn Knight cared _far_ too much about both Jonah Bishop and his stubborn mother to be able to compartmentalise this particular losing fight into just the boxing ring of the court.

No. If Jocelyn took this case, she'd take punch after punch after punch, until her best defences cracked and buckled, her unassailable walls of evidence finally breached. Reeling and exhausted, she'd slump clumsily to her knees before her prickly, brilliant, unforgiving former pupil. And Sharon Bishop would never, never forgive Jocelyn for failing to do the impossible, would never forgive her erstwhile idol for falling short of her impeccable reputation when Sharon needed her most. Jocelyn knew quite well that Sharon's respect for her as a mentor had evaporated some thirteen years before, but it still meant quite a lot to her that Sharon respected her intellectually, and since Jocelyn was going to disappoint Sharon either way, she might as well save face on the latter front. Sharon had already accused Jocelyn of never representing the unpopular parties in risky cases; she couldn't be surprised if the same pattern held true here. Much better to take this particular unfiled brief and tuck it away, next to where Jocelyn kept her regrets for failing to be brave for Maggie Radcliffe. Out of mind, and out of sight.

For there was the growing reality that any case might be Jocelyn's last. She stored the files in a cabinet in her chambers. And then she deleted all of Sharon's voicemails and turned an increasingly blind eye on the whole matter.

Perhaps it was for the best, in the end, that Jocelyn didn't take Jonah Bishop's case. By the end of the following year, she had given up practice, sold her flat in London, and moved back to Broadchurch. A sum went a lot further in Dorset than it did in London: Jocelyn was able to buy the house of her dreams, with a stunning outlook over the ocean. She signed the paperwork with a grim smile, knowing that, if things continued progressing the way they had been, she soon wouldn't even be able to admire the view.


	4. Broadchurch, 2018

Sharon had regretted not being able to enjoy Dorset, during the weeks she was down for Joe Miller's trial. Broadchurch really had been just as otherworldly as Jocelyn had always implied, with its windswept beaches and its quaint little storefronts and the imposing ridge of cliffs that jutted from the earth to loom over the shore. But Sharon had seen the town as merely a venue for a legal battle, during that particular stay. And she would have laughed in the face of anyone who had told her then that, in only five years' time, she'd be sipping tea at Jocelyn Knight's home, glancing out the window over the seaside vista.

"Ben sent over the tapes of the depositions last week, before he and his family left for Bermuda, so I was able to listen to those," Jocelyn was telling her. "And you said that you'd been in touch with the victim's family, about identifying the items of clothing found at the scene of the crime?"

"Yeah."

Jocelyn could no longer see the ocean clearly from out her window, could probably no longer even spot any runs in Sharon's stockings (not that Sharon had had runs in her stockings for decades). But she still could tell when her former pupil's mind was far away.

"Sharon?"

"Said the hat was definitely her boyfriend's," Sharon continued, without missing any perceptible beat, "but several friends confirm that he lent it to her earlier that day. No one's identified the t-shirt yet. And..."

"Is Jonah doing all right?" Jocelyn interrupted gently.

"It's been a difficult readjustment period," Sharon confessed after a prolonged moment. "Well, you've seen how it is. God knows I'm glad he's out of prison and that much safer, but his life has just changed so irrevocably." She smiled grimly. "Here's the thing that no one tells you about being a mother, Jocelyn. You dream up the most perfect lives imaginable for your child to live out, and hope and pray that he'll follow one of them through to the happy ending that you'd always wanted for him. Maybe it was short-sighted of me, especially as a CPS-approved barrister who'd seen it happen to the best of families, but I simply never expected this for Jonah. Not for _my_ son. Not something like this that will haunt him for the rest of his life, both internally and externally."

"I understand," Jocelyn murmured.

"_Do_ you?" Sharon challenged her.

Jocelyn took another sip of tea and, out of habit, gazed out the window.

"What made you take his case, after all these years?" Sharon asked. "I know you say it was because you didn't want to end on a loss. I know you say that it's because you wanted to remind me of the nobility of the legal profession. And I know that you claim you needed a way back into it all, after decamping back here for a stint and hiding out, worrying about your sight. Bollocks. I'll believe any and all of it, but only up to a certain point. What really changed your mind?"

Jocelyn didn't answer at first, but Sharon could wait with impatient courtesy for as long as it took, and the older barrister knew it.

"You're right, of course," she said finally. "I meant what I said, but of course I also failed to say much of what I meant. It helped, of course, that I bothered going back through the files and realised that it wasn't as clear-cut of a losing case as I'd thought. But some things in my life also changed, right around the time of the Joe Miller trial. Three major changes, I suppose."

"Your mother."

"Yes." Jocelyn nodded. "It puts things in perspective, when you lose the person to whom you always could turn for advice. Makes you question how sound your own judgement and moral compass are. Between Joe Miller's trial and my mother's passing, I ended up thinking a lot about the relationships between parents and children, and how fragile those can be. It made me feel that the least that I could do would be to help you recover your son."

"I never lost Jonah," Sharon insisted with quiet ferocity. "He may have been in prison, but he was always my boy, and I never loved him any less."

"I know," said Jocelyn calmly. "And that was the second of the changes. I never doubted how much you loved your son, Sharon. But I also could never fully empathise with the pain that you were experiencing. Until I realised that I also deeply loved someone who had killed a man."

Because Jocelyn had known Jack Marshall for decades and had never held him any ill will. And reading his tragic story in _The Herald_ had filled her with pity more than anything else. Even Jocelyn Knight, the consummate lawyer, recognised that not all that was legal was good, and not all that was illegal was bad, and that Jack Marshall's real crime had been impatience. When his body was found on the beach, Jocelyn had felt like her heart was breaking all over again, because it was entirely Maggie's fault that a good man had killed himself, and Jocelyn hadn't known how to forgive Maggie for that. (Jocelyn couldn't blame Olly Stevens for what had happened, because he was just an impulsive and self-centred boy; Maggie was the one who gave Olly the green light to pursue the lead, and she should have known better. Vicarious liability and such.)

So Jocelyn had stopped speaking to Maggie. Had shut out the rest of the world, in fact—locked herself in her house and turned up the radiators and allowed herself to marinate in self-pity, not only for her failing eyes, but for the fact that the woman she had quietly loved for over a decade wasn't nearly as good and pure and wonderful as Jocelyn had always believed. Jocelyn never forgave and forgot the careless mistakes of others, neither in chambers nor in the rest of life. It wasn't until Maggie herself had rudely barged back into Jocelyn's life that the barrister was forced to admit that even Maggie's worst mistakes weren't enough to make Jocelyn stop loving her, that maybe even someone who had a man's blood on her hands through sheer recklessness deserved a wholehearted second chance.

"You fault yourself as a barrister for not anticipating that your son could become one of your clients," Jocelyn told Sharon. "I fault myself as a barrister for never truly understanding why the unpopular cases were the ones that were worth the risk of taking. The person in my life who had done something unforgivable was never going to be prosecuted in court for what had happened, but it still took all of the strength and compassion and grace imaginable, for me to redeem my image of who that person was. To forgive. By the end of it all, I could imagine much better what you were going through, and I wanted to help do what I could to redeem your son in the eyes of society, as well."

Sharon nodded tersely.

"And the last?"

Jocelyn quirked a smile at Sharon.

"Well, you suddenly reappeared in my life, after all this time. And you were so much _angrier_ than I remembered, so much less trusting of the justice system. I remember the student who came to my chambers to ask me about representing immigrants in Whitechapel, Sharon. Even on the day that we parted ways, you still saw the law as a means of obtaining justice for those who needed it, despite my unwillingness to use it the way you wanted me to. And I know that there's a lot that I probably should have done differently between then and now, but of all of the mistakes that I can recall, not taking your son's case is the one that I think truly turned you as cynical as you became."

"Don't give yourself too much credit," snorted Sharon. "Sure, maybe you provided the straw that broke the camel's back, but any cynicism on my part came from years upon years of observing how the system is stacked against some people."

" 'Street-fighting in wigs'—I remember. And yet it sometimes works the way it should," Jocelyn reminded her. "We won the appeal, after all. Hasn't that changed your view of the law's nobility?"

Sharon sighed.

"No," she said softly. "But it does help me sleep better at night." She glanced at Jocelyn. "So you're really gonna try to make me believe that you put yourself through that marathon purely to restore my faith in our shitty justice system?"

"_Flawed_ justice system, I would say," Jocelyn corrected her. "Not irredeemable. And yes, I was hoping to do something of that sort, to restore what faith I could. You're a truly brilliant barrister, Sharon. I couldn't bear to see someone with such potential become mired in such overwhelming rage, and self-destruct over it."

"Well, thanks, but it was my choice, wasn't it?" Sharon laughed bitterly. "I haven't been your responsibility for decades, Jocelyn."

"Perhaps not, but still. You said earlier that there were certain lives that you imagined for your son, and some that you never dreamt could come to pass. What ever made you think that I hadn't imagined the same sorts of lives for you, once upon a time?"

Sharon stared at Jocelyn, and then began to chuckle in earnest.

"Never thought I'd see the day," she smirked. "The renowned, prestigious Jocelyn Knight, letting emotions dictate what briefs she'd take. Letting the neat little compartments fall to pieces that much. And here I was under the impression that you didn't like me enough to take the case."

"It might shock you to know that I didn't take the case because I feared that you would hate _me_ by the time it was over."

"Jocelyn, I bloody _asked_ you to take it, didn't I? Why in god's name did you think that I would hate you more for _taking_ the case than for refusing to?"

"Because I stand by what I said, about your propensity for blaming others when you lose cases," Jocelyn argued. "That always has been a failing of yours, and something that you should correct, Sharon. I couldn't see any way to win, at the time. And how could I have disappointed you, when you were _so certain _that I could win—when you put such desperate, furious faith in me?"

Sharon was silent for a long moment.

"All these years, I assumed it was because of some of the things I said to you," she said finally. "I honestly thought you despised me. I wouldn't have blamed you, if you did."

"Well," sighed Jocelyn, "I can't pretend that you exactly endeared yourself to me with those comments. And I certainly had my petty moments, during which I remembered what you said, and maybe I didn't like you all that much then. But you don't have to _like_ someone to care deeply about what happens to them. You don't have to _agree_ with what someone is doing, to still want them to be everything that you know and hope that they can and will be. You asked me once what I would know about being a mother. I just told you that, when my mother died in the midst of the Joe Miller trial, I felt like I had lost my bearings completely, been left abandoned on the high seas with nothing to guide the way back. And then I looked at how I had treated you, when it came to Jonah and to so much else, and wondered if I hadn't abandoned you in just the same way."

Sharon tried to take another sip of tea, found her cup empty, and instead stared out the window for a moment.

"If I wasn't the mentor that I wanted to be, it was because I was angry, too," Jocelyn explained quietly. "Here you were—young, talented, unapologetic, ferociously bound to your principles and willing to defend them to the end. You were so utterly _fearless_, unafraid of what the consequences would be if you took the risks that you thought were worth taking, and you kept on succeeding, even when you took those risks. I resented that, more than I think I realised at the time. It made me hate myself for being so cautious, and yet I was paralysed, totally unable to figure out how I could do anything other than what I had been doing my entire life. It wasn't until Maggie finally forced my hand during the Joe Miller trial that I understood that, if I were as fearless as you always were, maybe I could have success without moral compromise, as well. She forced me to be brave. And, once I was brave enough, I could finally see why I needed to help you. Not a good look, I know, to have let my own insecurities get in the way of doing the right thing."

"No," Sharon agreed. "But, in a strange way, it makes me feel somewhat better, to know that you were never as good at compartmentalising as you always pretended you were."

She reflexively tried taking yet another sip of tea from her empty cup, and Jocelyn took pity on Sharon and refilled it.

"By the way," Sharon added, "I know it's none of my business, but I think that Maggie's extremely good for you. First time I ever saw her with you, I thought, _Hmm, Jocelyn looks so _happy_ for once, maybe she's more human than I'd realised._ Legal London might have breathed a sigh of relief, to have seen the two of you together."

"I didn't know what I wanted then. Didn't know what I dared, for that matter. It's easier, of course, twenty years later. But, more than that, I just got tired of keeping secrets. You really can't do that in a town as small as Broadchurch, as you've seen. Everyone knows everyone else's business, eventually."

"You very likely would have won, you know," Sharon said after a moment. "The Joe Miller trial. If only your clients hadn't been so wrapped up in their own secrets."

"Well, it's in the past. No good picking it all apart now." Jocelyn glanced at Sharon. "I still don't understand why, Sharon. You appointed yourself my conscience, once upon a time. You challenged _me_ for years to take the just cases, not the easy cases. Why did you take that one?"

"I was angry, too." Sharon shrugged. "I've never been able to compartmentalise anything. Work, relationships, family—it's all mixed up in one for me. Always has been. It's my life. I couldn't separate it all out. And I'm not sure I'd want to, if I could. After all, it's brought us to this moment, hasn't it? My boy finally out of prison, because Maggie dragged your embittered grandmaster self out of wallowing in self-pity, and you could see the technical grounds for appeal that I couldn't?"

Jocelyn nodded slowly. Because Sharon was right, of course. It was thanks to Sharon's emotional rashness that Jocelyn was back practising law; thanks to the confluence of events set off by Sharon's taking Joe Miller's case that Maggie Radcliffe had stormed back into Jocelyn's home and her life; thanks to those fraught months that Jocelyn had finally, _finally_ learned to take risks when it mattered. Her heart still went out to the Latimers and their poor little boy, and Jocelyn was positive that Sharon's did, too, perhaps even more so. But what was done could not be undone. And, now that things had played out as they had, the only thing to do was to advance forward.

"The depositions," Jocelyn said. "If you have time, I'd like to discuss them. Stay for dinner?"

"Bloody hell, you even _feed_ your colleagues, these days?"

"The sunsets this time of year are stunning, and you can't get a better view than this," Jocelyn continued, pretending she couldn't see her former pupil's incredulous grin. "Besides, I think Maggie's planning on making carbonara tonight."


End file.
